


waving flags

by millimallow



Series: the world of owa [17]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Gen, i'm too tired to tag this properly just enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 17:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millimallow/pseuds/millimallow
Summary: part 18 of the world of owa anthology.simple signals are the language of gods.





	waving flags

i’ve been to many a shore, but the one which calls me always is home. lying miles out to sea, off the soretta samke coast, are reams of flags held up on poles, fluttering in the constant sea breeze. a long time ago they would signal to foreign sailors a sign of life- in our modern world flags like these are mostly redundant. all of them, from the broad rectangular ones to the tiny triangle strips, are remnants of a different time. but these little things, even when they seem useless, can mean the world to someone. when i can see one of the poles sticking out of the water for the first time over the horizon, i feel for one more moment the ache of homesickness in my bones only for it to melt away and become part of the great surrounding sea.

it’s worse when you know you can’t stay long. even when i talk about soretta samke as home, there’s a truth in my heart that i know all too well: i lost the privilege of living in my home a long time ago. i gave that to a man with a white smile and prim hair, wrote it into a contract that drove me away from my family. the people who stood at the docks as the vessel departed, waving and crying for me, having told me two days ago-

“ _son, i want you to have nothing to do with this business. but do what you will, and we will be here._ ”

later, i would find the heaving bag of ginger candies which they had packed me in secret. when my rations were cut for mistakes during cleaning duty, i subsisted on them for three days, and when my stash ran out it felt like tragedy had struck. my hope of finding them sold in the onboard commission was dashed before it could even really begin- another conscript from soretta had took me by the sleeve when she saw me eating one of the only i had at that point. she described in detail to me how she missed them, both the taste and the scent of their preparation, and i agreed to hide my great disappointment. of course i gave her one- even if my stock was virtually depleted, my heart ached too much for her to not offer it. she was beautiful- curly haired and freckle-faced- before she left in secret, i considered asking her to arrange a marriage with me. a blunt romance, but it provided a reasonable break from the day-to-day maintenance of the ship and rank.

and when she left, for the few peaceful nights free from interrogation and suspicion, i dreamed of runnning away. with our shoes taken at night, i could only imagine my bare feet on the sand, the grass, the smooth stone. what a triumph they were, my little fantasies of swimming to land and escaping the high and salty waters i was lifted over and upon.

but i was too good. perhaps someone had seen me lift a log particularly impressively, or scrub the facilities efficiently, because i was approached by one of my superiors only a few weeks after the previous incident occurred. he looked at me gravely, whitish hair and bird’s-egg blue eyes, and told me i was needed somewhere else for now. i took it as a temporary advancement at first, only realizing i was there to stay with the real naval officers when, without notifying me, a wooden sign bearing my name had been haphazardly attached to my bunk. i liked that bunk- it was small, but infinitely more spacious than the previous one and with almost-comfortable bedding. my peers were different from before- they did not come in their dozens or easily, so they were worth transferring from place to place. and though our differences never endeared us to eachother, we lived together in what’s best described as a perpetual amicable silence. food improved, as did my schedule and free time provisions, so for a while i didn’t think too much about it. or anything. not my family, not my home, never even the waving flags which lie so far away.

until i saw them again, ten years later.

we had been loaded onto a smaller ship with advanced military capabilities. the locale had been obscured, as was the cause, so we did what our instruction had taught us and hurried our sorry asses to the capsule ship, as it was called. my memory likes to believe it was me and four others, mostly trevailian caluutes, but it could be more or less. could have been different people. i never said i was perfect. but by the time we had been given permission to slip open the shutters of our holding bay and let the light in, the flags were there. telling me everything i needed to know about our mission. though my enlistment was not only allowed but encouragement, it was no secret to inhabitants of either country that naval border skirmishes between soretta samke and trevailia had been almost perpetual since soretta samke’s independence. before i could choke on the breath i had taken in just a second before, we were hurried up to the dock and supplied with our muskets. in that moment, i could see the fire in the eyes of my fellow soldiers burn bright enough to reflect the sun, and wondered if i even knew them at all.

all i knew was what i couldn’t do, and the consequences of that. in a moment of diversion between the fishermen and the soldiers, i managed to slip into the cabin and defenestrate myself, far enough away that i couldn’t be shot at- not easily, at least. suffice to say, it did not go unnoticed, and i was less than welcome back in the barracks. or at my home, once they received word of my name amongst the aggressors.

a man marked missing can only be welcome in memories, after all. and though i know that it smells the same, looks the same and sounds the same, one thing isn’t the same.

the lost man of caron can never be found.


End file.
